


hold me like we're going home

by punkrockbadger



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Post - Deathly Hallows, Post-War, Second War with Voldemort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-23
Updated: 2014-09-23
Packaged: 2018-02-18 11:12:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2346374
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/punkrockbadger/pseuds/punkrockbadger
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"One ordinary year."</p>
            </blockquote>





	hold me like we're going home

**Author's Note:**

> Song Rec: Heaven Knows, Five For Fighting (http://www.youtube.com/watch/?v=7U6M5bWzTzM)

The two of of them are huddled together around the dining table, in the flat Harry shares with Hermione (who is currently working) and Ron (who is currently, god bless him, trying to get Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes back off the ground), when the owls arrive, with four letters to deliver. The seals on the backs of the parchment envelopes are familiar, far too familiar, and Harry’s breath catches as he feels a tug in the pit of his stomach that leaves him high and dry, halfway between fear and boundless joy.

He remembers seeing the very first letter, sandwiched between a bill and a postcard, with his name and “Cupboard Under The Stairs” scrawled on the front. He’d wondered about the oddly colored envelope rather than the secrets it could hold. He hadn’t known a whole new life could be captured within a package that small, but it had.

One of the owls, a snowy white one that reminds him of Hedwig, raps its claw against the window, hooting softly, and Ginny is the one to get up and open the dusty window. She unties the letters from the owls’ legs and offers them the last of the box of Owl Treats Hermione had bought two months ago, during the first venture out into society a month after the war. Once Hermione had introduced Mrs. Weasley to Tupperware, shortly after the Battle of Hogwarts, there had been more than enough food in their refrigerator to last them nearly a month. But the three of them had run out, sooner than later and had to keep their heads down while tailed by reporters.

Harry hasn’t left the apartment, after that.

His fame, gained in a way that he’d change in a heartbeat, wraps around him like a too small sweater even here, in this place that is supposed to be safe and secure, and he feels like the Wizarding World’s expectations are pinning him to the floor. There are simply too many, just like the too many letters rushing out of the fireplace on that afternoon in July seven years ago, and seeing more than one in front of him has his breath quickening in anticipation of something big happening again.

There have been lots of letters since May, hundreds of them, and Harry has answered less than a quarter, leaving the rest to pile up on the kitchen counter. Hermione hadn’t asked and Harry hadn’t answered, but they’d both walked in on Ron organizing the piles at one in the morning because he just needed something to do with his hands.

“It all feels like just yesterday.” Ron had muttered, sticking a paper cut covered index finger into his mouth. It was late June then, oppressively hot even at night, and Harry had woken up sweating and screaming, grasping for his mother’s hand. Harry'd stumbled his way to the kitchen for a glass of water, only to realize that Ron was there, one solitary lamp lit to keep him company while the Put-Outer lay untouched on the kitchen table, while he sorted through the piles of paper. “But it also feels like years ago, you know? Like it happened to somebody else.”

“Yeah.” Harry had said fervently, thankful that Ron somehow had the words to put to the sense of unrest they were all feeling. Ron has always been the one to put a voice to what everyone was feeling, and Harry wonders how different things could have been if they had just listened to him a little more. “Almost feels like it did.”

“It’s only a story, then.” Hermione, who had crept up entirely unnoticed, had said, arms crossed tightly against her chest as a smile tugged at her lips. “Our story.”

“Ours.” Harry had agreed, voice thick and slow with something akin to a soul deep lethargy, and they had set to cleaning up the place immediately, despite the early hour.

“Harry.” Ginny calls, and he blinks, realizing by the tone of her voice that she’d been calling to him for several minutes now. She’s holding a single letter out to him, two piled up near the third and fourth chairs around the table, and things slow to a nearly normal place as he realizes that the letter she is holding out is his and that he can open it if he so wishes.

“Sorry.” Harry mumbles, before taking the letter from her hand while trying to ignore the look of understanding. He’d often forgotten, at the worst of times, that Ginny knew exactly what he’d felt and had felt it all before entirely on her own. “I got… a little... lost.”

“Happens to the best of us.” She remarks wryly, smiling carelessly as she leans her head on his shoulder before opening her letter. Her hair curls around her shoulders as the top of her head tucks neatly beneath his jaw and he wonders if his parents ever had a moment like this, where they could just be without worrying. He slips an arm around her shoulders and is thanked by her smile growing for a split second, like a little burst of sunlight held between them. “McGonagall's asking us all back. I’ll have to repeat sixth, but that’s not too much bad.”

Harry is almost reverent as he opens the newest iteration of a letter that saved him and damned him all at once and lets the familiar words wash over him, settling around him like a warm blanket. He doesn’t realize his hands are shaking until one of hers settles over them, and she lifts her head to press a kiss to the edge of his jaw before nuzzling back into her warm spot.

“It’s not going to be our Hogwarts anymore, Gin.” He says, voice trembling, and she chuckles softly.

“Then let’s make it ours.” She says, sounding confident. “Not like we haven’t done it before.”

“One ordinary year.” He says, dreams that may one day be memories flashing through his head. “You and me.”

“One ordinary year.” She repeats, and he doesn’t feel too bad about putting his name back down for a whole optional year of school.


End file.
